


Gingerbread Houses

by misura



Category: Ysabel - Guy Gavriel Kay
Genre: Christmas, Gen, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-10 03:03:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12902559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: 'Just go, Ned,his father had said.'I'm not a kid anymore, you know.'He'd smiled then, and Ned had understood that what his father was really saying was that he, Ned, wasn't a kid anymore, that if he wanted to spend Christmas visiting his aunt, he could. His decision. His call to make.





	Gingerbread Houses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coralysendria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coralysendria/gifts).



Ned wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, really. He'd felt a little excited at the idea of getting to celebrate Christmas with Aunt Kim. A little apprehensive as well, perhaps.

If Mom, Aunt Kim's sister, had unexpectedly come home, he might have called the whole thing off with a certain sense of relief. As it was, she was somewhere relatively safe, as these things went: an earthquake site, where nobody as likely to start shooting at her, Doctor Without Borders or not.

_'Just go, Ned,_ his father had said. _'I'm not a kid anymore, you know.'_

He'd smiled then, and Ned had understood that what his father was really saying was that he, Ned, wasn't a kid anymore, that if he wanted to spend Christmas visiting his aunt, he could. His decision. His call to make.

_'Will you be all right by yourself?'_ A silly question. He'd felt obliged to ask it even so.

Before, even if Mom hadn't been there, the two of them had at least had each other.

_'I'm sure I'll trip over my own feet and break my neck the moment you're out the door.'_ His father had rolled his eyes. _'Or forget how to cook and be incapable of feeding myself as a result, because I'll also have forgotten there are places you can order food from. Honestly, Ned.'_

_Honestly, Ned._ His father happened to be an excellent cook.

Ned had thought, _All right, that's settled, then._ Aunt Kim (or possibly Uncle Dave) had ended up making most of the arrangements - buying his plane tickets, planning his route, but that first decision had been his.

Whatever happened, whatever came of this visit to Aunt Kim, it would be on Ned. His responsibility. His own damn fault, if he ended up not liking it.

 

There were no delays on his flight. Ned wondered if that counted as a good sign, then decided that the fact that he was looking for good signs probably counted as the opposite. This was just a trip to England, to visit a relative he hadn't spent much time with. It wasn't as if anything important was going to happen.

(Question: did he, Ned, _want_ something important to happen? Was he, in fact, not an adult young man visiting his aunt, but rather a kid, looking for another adventure? Had he learned nothing at all from what had happened to him, other than that he sometimes had cool, scary powers?)

Uncle Dave picked him up at the train station, as promised.

Ned figured that, as a lawyer, the odds of some emergency coming up were a lot smaller. He did wonder, briefly, what kind of clients Uncle Dave worked for.

It was hard, somehow, to picture him in a suit, let alone rising to defend someone who had committed a crime, getting them off on some sort of technicality. Childish, really. Ned felt he should know better. Being a lawyer was just a job like any other. Being a criminal didn't mean someone didn't have the right to a fair trial.

Of course, Uncle Dave could reasonably be said to be something more than just a lawyer.

Ned had seen him take on a pack of wolves, nearly bare-handed. That wasn't something most lawyers did. It wasn't even something most _people_ did, or would do, given the chance.

"Your aunt's pretty excited to have you here, you know," Uncle Dave said.

Was that a cue for Ned to say he was excited to be here, too? He was, but it felt weird to say that out loud - or not weird, Ned realized wryly. _Normal._ Like he and Uncle Dave were making small talk.

"Maybe next year, we can all get together," he said instead. "With Mom there, too," he added, in case his meaning hadn't been clear.

Uncle Dave was quiet for a few moments, before he said, "I'm sure that she'd like that."

It didn't take a genius to figure out the 'she' in that sentence was Aunt Kim, rather than Ned's mother.

"Of course," Ned went on, "there's no guarantee it's going to happen."

"Some days, that kind of thinking's the only thing that lets me sleep at night," Uncle Dave said.

"And on other days?" Picturing Uncle Dave being afraid was almost as hard as picturing him in a suit, standing up for some scumbag criminal had been.

Uncle Dave hesitated. "On other days, it's that kind of thinking that keeps me up."

Ned chuckled, mostly because he felt he should.

"What I was actually trying to get around to saying is that no matter how excited she may be to have her nephew over from the States, your aunt's a doctor," Uncle Dave said. "Something may happen requiring her to leave. She'd prefer it if it wouldn't, because she looks forward to spending more time with you, but when someone decides to have an accident, there's not much she can do."

"Except to go and help," said Ned. "Like Mom."

"Well, lucky for me, your Aunt Kim stays a bit closer to home, but yes. Like your mom."

"I understand." Ned did, too. Mom had explained it to him several times, practically from the moment he'd been able to talk, to reassure her that he understood, that it was okay.

Perhaps it was a little unfair to think of it like that, but then, some days, life was like that. Unfair.

 

Ned wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but once they'd arrived at Aunt Kim's home (and Uncle Dave's, too, he supposed) he felt disappointed. A bit let down, if truth be told.

The Christmas tree was a real one, at least, as were the wreaths of holly. The little Santa statues and angel decorations and reindeer lights were real, too - real plastic, that was.

The presents under the tree were likely real presents. (Ned made a mental note to send Melanie an e-mail to thank her for having provided him with a few pre-wrapped presents of his own, even if he still had no idea what was in them, or how Melane had divined what to buy for two complete strangers.)

The smell of hot chocolate was real, as evidenced by Aunt Kim offering him a steaming mug once he'd come downstairs again after putting down his bags in the guest room.

_'No marshmallows?'_ Uncle Dave had asked, his expression one of mock-horror. _'Not even some whipped cream?'_

_'It's good to have something to look forward to,'_ Aunt Kim had replied serenely, and then she'd winked at Ned, leaving him feeling more confused than anything.

He supposed confused might be better than disappointed. Not by much, though.

_'At least tell me there'll be fresh cookies later.'_

_'Of course.'_

It was all very mundane and ordinary, and not at all exciting. Ned supposed that it was possible it got better later on, that Aunt Kim would show him some special ritual, something only people like them did on Christmas, but he was beginning to think that he'd been deluding himself, coming here with all these expectations of what spending Christmas with Aunt Kim _wasn't_ going to be like.

His mistake. His own damn fault, if he were to end up not enjoying himself.

 

"You're disappointed," Aunt Kim stated. Not a question.

At least she was smiling - with more sympathy than amusement, Ned thought.

"A little," he admitted. "I thought - aren't we going to talk about my powers at all? Don't you want to know if I still have them, if I've used them at all since the last time we met?"

"I assume you talk about that sort of thing with your parents," Aunt Kim said. "Can't you, or haven't you?"

Ned considered. "I could if I wanted to. But they can't really understand, can they?"

"Can't they?" Aunt Kim looked at him. "Your Uncle Dave understands me well enough - too well, sometimes." She grinned. Ned remembered Uncle Dave in the car, telling him Aunt Kim was excited about his coming here.

"Uncle Dave has seen things," Ned said. Mom had seen things, too. She didn't always talk about them, but Ned wasn't stupid. He could read.

Still, Uncle Dave had also seen things Ned's mother never would.

"So have you. So has your father." Aunt Kim sighed. "I did try, you know. The first few years after - after I came back. I felt obliged to make an effort. It seemed important. Over time, I realized that they probably didn't care."

_They._ Ned felt a chill. _Spirits. Deities. Otherworldly beings. Take your pick._

"There's a difference between honoring something, or someone, and making yourself feel better by pretending that you are doing something meaningful, something nobody else can or would do," Aunt Kim said. "I realized that I was setting myself apart, when what I really wanted was much simpler. So I stopped. I decided to celebrate Christmas the same way everybody else does."

Ned cleared his throat. "There is no one, true way."

Aunt Kim smiled. "Sure there isn't. Still, what do you say we go and watch aliens invade London while eating some cookies and drinking hot chocolate, while your Uncle Dave is slaving over dinner?"

Ned considered. "Sounds good." It also sounded like nothing he couldn't have done back home, minus the cookies and possibly the Doctor Who Christmas special.

"You can call your father later, let him know you're all right."

Ned wanted to say that his father would know that. It was true. This was England. He realized that he'd like to hear his father's voice, though, to wish him merry Christmas.

To say, _'I'm having cookies and hot chocolate, and we watched the Doctor Who Christmas special.'_

To say, _'When I come home, I'll be the same kid who left. The same Ned.'_

He'd have to find a way to phrase that last bit a little more like a grown-up would, of course.


End file.
